


Call Me By His Name

by spuffyduds



Category: due South
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-07
Updated: 2010-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-05 23:33:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spuffyduds/pseuds/spuffyduds





	Call Me By His Name

It was a weird few days, with weird messages from up North--Muldoon was caught, the Ice Queen was transferring. And Benny and _Stanley_ went off on some sort of freaky quest. Which Ray figured would last about three days before the twitchy little spaz tried even Benny's patience, but still, freaky.

The day they got _that_ message he and Stella went out and got hammered. And they'd been flirting since they met, which was that same week, _Christ_ it was a long week, but once they'd had a couple drinks there was no stopping it, in fact they had trouble stopping it in the _taxi_ long enough to button and zip and tuck and make it back up into her condo. And it was a great night, and even before the first time was over Ray was thinking he wanted to marry her. But he had a little shred of sense, he remembered that this was the first time he'd been with anybody in two years when he was actually _there_, when he wasn't Armando, and he remembered that he was drunk. So he waited until morning, looked at her and she was still the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, and he asked. And holy shit, she looked at him the same way he was looking at her and said _yes_.

 

And Florida's working out. No surprise to Ray--when Stella does something she does it good and hard. One thing she's doing is doubling the business at the bowling alley, by personally handing out flyers at the eleven thousand nearby senior citizens centers. While wearing a short skirt. The lanes have standing-room-only for old men, now.

The other thing she's doing is being good to Ray, being intense and focused at it. Checking on his recovery, keeping notes from his doctors' visits, picking up his favorite takeout meals. Not complaining when his mother calls and talks for two hours.

It's only every so often, those rare moments when they're not kissing or talking or dancing, that Ray notices they're giving each other the look, the one he thinks of as the "end-of-The-Graduate" look--well, _that_ was a dramatic running-off-together, what do we do _now_? And that's happening less and less, he's pretty sure. Every time it happens he stops it with a kiss, and if they're at home he stops it with more, and that always works.

Until one day he makes a stupid joke. She's all limp and relaxed under him--he loves her like this, just after, all soft and smiling, and she's murmuring Ray Ray Ray in his ear, and he laughs and says, "That's convenient."

"Hmmm?" she says, and she doesn't sound like she gets it, but she feels a little less soft.

"I mean," he says, "doesn't matter if you slip and get the name wrong, 'cause it'll be right anyway." She rolls him off her, kinda hard, and sits up and starts pulling clothes on, and shit, that was a stupid thing to say. "Joke," he says. "Just a joke." He grins at her, tries again, says, "Next time you're coming, call me Vecchio and I'll be sure you've got it right."

"Funny," she says. She's picking up her shoes now, not looking at him. "Like it wasn't convenient for _you._"

"Huh?" he says.

"He took your life, you took his. Nice and neat."

"What are you _talking_ about? He didn't have my _life_. It was a work gig, it was _professional_."

"He had your Mountie," Stella says.

"What are you getting at, exactly, Stella?" and Ray winces, because he hasn't heard that hard mean voice in a while; that was the Bookman. He pulls the sheet up to his chest but he doesn't get out of bed, because he's thinking he shouldn't be standing up and near her when that voice is happening to him.

"I mean, every story. Every time you talk about Chicago, it's Benny Benny Benny. Perfect and polite and leaping buildings in a single bound. Saving kittens and puppies. It must have killed you to come back and find Ray getting to be the sidekick, huh? Must have just killed you for _Benny_ to have his attention elsewhere, for Benny to have been _happy_ without you, for Ray not to need you."

"You said Ray," Ray says.

"What?" She's putting her jewelry back on too, armoring up all the way, but she stops with one earring in, finally turns to look at him again. And he's never seen her look this furious, she looks like she'd like to kill him really slowly, but her eyes are wet.

"You said, 'for _Ray_ not to need you." Her face goes all unfocused and slack for a second, he was right, he fucking hates it when he's right. "Doesn't sound like you were thrilled about it either," he says.

She crosses her arms, and his Stella's suddenly gone, Florida Stella never existed, this is kick-ass Attorney Kowalski going in for the kill. She walks over to the bed, leans over until she's right in his face, smiles. Says, "Your alternate name suggestion wouldn't work, Ray."

"What?"

"It wouldn't help to call you Vecchio. Because Ray and I, my _first_ Ray," and she's smiling even brighter, "we had the occasional post-marital _evening_ after he took over your life. And it was always great, because _he_ was always great, did I ever tell you how great he was in bed, Ray? Leaping buildings, Ray. Single bound. But we were always _angry_. He'd be angry because I never let it get any further than one night, and I'd be angry because I had let it get _this_ far again, because I could never _resist_ him, Ray, he was _irresistible_."

Ray can't move. He would really, really like to be elsewhere, really like not to hear the rest of this, but he can't move.

She takes his chin in her hand, very gently, and kisses him, and says, "We'd be very angry, and he would call me Stella and sweetie and baby, and I would call him _Vecchio_, I was fucking you before I _met_ you, Ray, _happy_?"

He isn't.

 

\--END--


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